Winners and losers. That’s who I come across daily in the business world. Winners and losers.
Winners know how hard it is to make a business work and survive, let alone thrive. And every day they’re grounded, living in reality, and focusing on what matters.
Losers are delusional. And not in the romanticized I’m going to force my dreams into reality / entrepreneur standing on a hill staring into the distance sense. They’re just delusional and stupid. They don’t think about the customer. They don’t think about the things that matter. And they perpetually self-destruct.
We’ll talk about winners another day. For now, let’s focus on the losers. Pointing out what they do wrong can help us avoid making the same mistakes. And this is a Google Ads blog, so let me tell you about one of the most self-destructive activities losers engage in when they advertise on Google.
Statistical Overload
One of the most common mistakes I see losers make in Google Ads is that they become overloaded by statistics and fail to focus on what truly matters. I call this “Google Ads Statistical Overload.” When someone goes down this road, it’s over. True Google Ads success will never happen and their competitors will leave them broken, busted, and in the dust.
One of the great things about Google Ads is the amount of data and statistics we have access to as advertisers. Cost per click, position (for now at least), impression share, clickthrough rate, search terms, and on and on it goes. We get access to a ton of awesome information. And for Google Ads experts like myself, who know how to use and how not to use this data, all the information is great and helps us get strong Google Ads performance.
But in the wrong hands this data can be fatal. For some losers, who don’t know what it takes to survive in business, the data distracts them, and they go down rabbit holes, focusing obsessively on things that don’t matter. I’ve seen business owners obsess about things like ad copy, clickthrough rate, impression share, and position to the point that they lose focus on what they’re doing on Google Ads in the first place (trying to get more customers) and their business results take a major hit.
When Google Ads Statistical Overload takes over a business owner, it’s truly like a disease they can’t control. And honestly, it’s pathetic. As the Google Ads expert manager, I’m often sitting there in these situations asking one question, but what about the leads?
Leads are all that matter.
Leads are all that matter.
Leads are all that matter.
Write it down on the chalkboard 100 times. Write it on the chalkboard 1,000 times. Leads are all that matter.
Why are we obsessing about a 3% clickthrough rate versus a 2.7% clickthrough rate? Why are we obsessing about a 100% impression share versus a 94% impression share? What are we obsessing on a position of 1.1 versus 1.2? What about the leads?
One irony of all this is that the business losers who suffer from Google Ads Statistical Overload never seems to direct their obsessions on the conversion column (leads). None of them ever obsess about getting that lead count as high as possible. They seem to leave that one to the winners.
No Known Cure
Unfortunately, as of this writing there is no known cure for Google Ads Statistical Overload. All we can do is focus on prevention.
The only thing that truly matters when it comes to Google Ads and all forms of marketing is how many new customers you’re getting and at what cost. Stay focused on leads, and stay focused on getting more customers profitably.
The more you focus on leads and new customers and profitability, the less you’ll worry about truly ridiculous notions like being position 2.1 versus 2.3, whether or not your clickthrough rate is higher on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and how to get your impression share from 99.4% to 100%.
Focus on leads, cost per lead, and profitably getting new customers into your business. That’s the reason you’re advertising on Google, and that should be your only concern.
